{"id":40159,"date":"2013-09-11T08:05:44","date_gmt":"2013-09-11T15:05:44","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=40159"},"modified":"2013-09-06T09:58:38","modified_gmt":"2013-09-06T16:58:38","slug":"la-the-restaurants-and-the-fitness","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/?p=40159","title":{"rendered":"LA: The Restaurants and the Fitness"},"content":{"rendered":"

We flew into LA in the afternoon so I was able to get in my workout at home before we left. That was nice, getting it out of the way so I could enjoy some pizza for dinner!<\/p>\n

Vito’s Pizza\u00a0<\/a>We went here for a slice the first night we arrived. The pizza was supposedly very highly rated. I didn’t like the vibe of the place, but the food was good. The restaurant was small, cramped, with limited seating options and it was in a strip mall. It seems like most of LA is in a strip mall…The pizza came out on a paper plate–again, lacking in atmosphere! But the pizza was decent. I got the white pie with pesto.<\/p>\n

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What I thought were chunks of mozzarella cheese turned out to be ricotta. It was odd and new to me, but good. The only flaw is that they used a lot of ricotta cheese and it was really rich. The pesto helped balance out the sweet ricotta.<\/p>\n

Fitness in Hollywood<\/span><\/h4>\n

On Saturday I woke up a little early in order to enjoy the gym in the Loew’s Hollywood Hotel. It was such a cool gym! It wasn’t lame like a lot of hotel gyms. There were half a dozen treadmills, 4 ellipticals, a few bikes and the weight room was outside next to the pool.<\/p>\n

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I worked out on the elliptical for about 20 minutes and then spent some time lifting weights. I had to modify my workout quite a bit because I didn’t have access to some of the things I needed for my program, but I still got in a good workout!<\/p>\n

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On Sunday I went for a swim in the pool. I wanted to do more swimming on this trip but just didn’t get around to it. The pool was empty when I got there Sunday morning and was able to enjoy my swim with the pool all to myself. It was kind of a small pool for lap swimming but I made do.<\/p>\n

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Then a guy joined me and decided to swim in a circle around the perimeter of the pool while I was trying to swim laps. I have no idea what he was thinking. \ud83d\ude1b It was very annoying.<\/p>\n

On Monday I took a rest day from the gym but ended up doing so much walking in Santa Monica that I definitely got a work out!<\/p>\n

More Restaurants<\/span><\/h4>\n

The Abbey<\/a>\u00a0This place was such a cool find! It was such a cool building and huge! So much outdoor and indoor seating. It’s a restaurant\/gay club\/bar\/nightclub.<\/p>\n

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We went here on a Sunday afternoon for a late lunch\/snack and the place was completely packed. Not only that, there was a DJ spinning records. On a Sunday afternoon? Crazy!<\/p>\n

25 Degrees\u00a0<\/a>We went here twice because the options near our hotel were so limited. First we went for happy hour. The drink options were decent and I loved the wine I got. We shared an order of happy hour onion rings and Michael liked them a lot. I did not. The batter was odd in flavor and texture.<\/p>\n

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The next day we got breakfast here. It was super spendy and honestly, overpriced for what we got, but the food was okay. This time Michael wasn’t impressed but I enjoyed breakfast. I got the scrambled eggs with burrata cheese, tomato, pesto and prosciutto.<\/p>\n

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The dish was a little saltier than I prefer but it came with a big bowl of fresh fruit that was great. At the very least, go to The Roosevelt Hotel to check it out. The inside is amazing. We wanted to go to their bar for a drink but ran out of time.<\/p>\n

Ray’s and Stark Bar<\/a>\u00a0This was a nice discovery. It was a really hot day and we’d been outside seeing the sights and walking around the park for the La Brea Tar Pits for hours. This was much needed shade. The vibe was very cool and there was a nice breeze as we sat in the shade.<\/p>\n

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We ordered a drink each and they gave us some homemade chips (which I wasn’t a fan of). They also brought out a thick menu for bottled water. Guess what, I could have had a bottle of water for only $20! \ud83d\ude1b<\/p>\n

Murakami Hollywood<\/a>\u00a0Hands down one of the best sushi dinners I’ve had, almost as good as the stuff we had in Hawaii. The reviews were raving and recommended the garlic soy sauce. Michael and I kind of mocked the people raving about it…I mean really, how good is garlic soy sauce? It’s pretty damn amazing we discovered! That sauce was fantastic. I don’t know how they made it but damn, I want more of that stuff.<\/p>\n

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The fish was fresh and delicious. Michael got the spicy tuna bowl and I got the mixed sashimi salad combo that came with a specialty roll. The food was so good I wanted to go back the next day and eat it again!<\/p>\n

Chateau Marmont<\/a>\u00a0Hell yeah we went here! We actually went here for a drink and appetizer before going to the sushi restaurant for dinner. I’d wanted to go to the Chateau Marmont for years. It was so cool seeing it and enjoying a drink on the outside garden patio!<\/p>\n

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We shared an order of calamari at the restaurant and a drink. Cameras weren’t allowed, which I knew ahead of time but was still hoping to spot some celebrities and get photos!<\/p>\n

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When we were leaving I saw Richard Lewis at the valet. He gave me THAT look–the one that says “I know you know who I am, but please don’t say anything or talk to me” look. LOL Whatever. It was still cool to see him!<\/p>\n

In-n-Out Sunset Blvd<\/a>\u00a0OF COURSE we went to In-n-Out. I’d been thinking about it for weeks leading up to the vacation and could not wait. We had lunch here our first day (skipped breakfast for it, too!). We kind of also went again for lunch on our last day before flying home…<\/p>\n

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Animal style is where it’s at. It’s a good thing I don’t live in California because I’d eat here all the time. All. The. Time.<\/p>\n

I’m so glad we got to eat at some GOOD restaurants, slightly disappointed that we got burned at a few places. I guess I had high expectations for LA restaurants. I definitely ate more than normal and things I don’t normally eat. I’m glad we shared a lot of the meals we ordered–hopefully I didn’t do too much<\/em>\u00a0damage…But, the happy memories are worth it!<\/p>\n

QUESTION: Ever seen a celebrity in person?<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We flew into LA in the afternoon so I was able to get in my workout at home before we left. That was nice, getting it out of the way so I could enjoy some pizza for dinner! Vito’s Pizza\u00a0We went here for a slice the first night we arrived. The pizza was supposedly very […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","footnotes":""},"categories":[7439,55,315,101,104,107,3799,193,2806,5170,1239,267,284,3921,285,299,301],"tags":[7463,7461,4597,7458,7457,7455,7459,7460,7462,2775,7456,7465,7464,4695,7466,6925],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40159"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40159"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40159\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":40286,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40159\/revisions\/40286"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40159"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40159"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.110pounds.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40159"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}